


of bad decisions and murderous vending machines

by apollothyme



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 00:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2290472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollothyme/pseuds/apollothyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Standing, not higher, but somewhat more prominent than his other bad decisions, is Marco's last judgement call, which involves his hand, a vending machine and a world of embarrassment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of bad decisions and murderous vending machines

**Author's Note:**

> The pale plump ass line was taken from one of the greatest fics in this fandom, [Fallen](http://archiveofourown.org/works/768339).

Marco has made many bad decisions in his life, most of which he has later come to regret.

He regrets not buying his mother a birthday gift when he was fifteen, because he thought she never liked his gifts. He regrets dating Anna from his class in year nine, because his mates kept making jokes about him being gay and he didn’t know how to say, ‘Yes, what of it?’. He regrets not going home this Christmas to save money, even if it means he’ll actually have enough to go somewhere next summer. 

Standing, not higher, but somewhat more prominent than his other bad decisions, is Marco's last judgement call, which involves his hand, a vending machine and a world of embarrassment.

Marco wiggles his fingers, trying to push against the cold metal to free his hand, but his efforts are to no avail. He’s stuck. He’s been stuck for over one hour, nearing two, and there’s not a single thing he can do about it because everyone’s gone home for Christmas and Marco is pretty sure he’s the only person left in the dorms. 

For what’s probably the hundredth time that day, Marco hides his face behind his free hand despite the fact that there’s no one around to feel sorry for him. 

He could always call one of the university lines, except that as a completely normal, not at all dumber than average— _shut up Podolski, as if you’re one to talk_ —nineteen-year-old college student, he doesn’t have any of his university’s numbers. He can’t check them online on his phone either, because he spent an hour in the toilet earlier watching prank videos and he’s used up his data plan.

Alright, alright. So maybe Marco isn’t the smartest pea in the pod, what with the ‘getting his hand stuck in a vending machine while trying to steal some snacks and not being able to call for help’ thing. Nevertheless, in the grand scheme of things, everyone knows events like this don’t mean anything as long as no one—especially Pierre, Robert, André and freaking Basti and Lukas—hear about it.

Marco tries to lie down in a more comfortable position with half his arm inside the machine, crooked from where he got it jammed between the glass and one of the metal platforms. Who made these, anyway? Couldn’t they see a liability where there was clearly one?

If Marco hadn’t been in the midst of stealing some chips and a KitKat for dinner and, thus, a broke college student, he’d consider suing.

As it is, he’s just happy he’d at least gotten the chips out before he got stuck.

Marco munches on them—ham flavored, his favorite—in silence. He’d freaked out about his situation during the first thirty time minutes of being stuck. Two hours later, he has fully accepted his predicament and settled in, ready to spend the night stuck on a vending machine. He’s slept in considerably worse places, such as on a rooftop during winter, in a bed with five other people, and one extra memorable night, in the sewers, which reminds him not to accept any party invitations from Lukas or Thomas again, no matter how appealing they might sound at the time. It took him months to get the poop smell out of his sneakers and those used to be his favorite pair.

Overall, his current situation is pretty decent. He has a roof on his head, an empty bladder, some food, and the comforting thought that the cleaners will have to show up at some point tomorrow and save him. A man couldn’t ask for more.

This train of thought is soothing for another twenty minutes, until Marco finishes eating his bag of crisps, realizes his bladder isn’t so empty after all and his hand starts to go numb from lack of blood flow. 

That’s when shit gets real.

“Help! Somebody! Anybody!” Marco shouts. His dorm is huge, there has to be at least one other person in the building who can hear him. Maybe if he angles his voice a certain way the air would better carry it. “Come on, please. Somebody save me from a horrible death by a vending machine. I’m too pretty to die like this.”

The last bit is added quietly to himself and as a joke to distract him from thinking about how he really,  _really_ needs to pee. But of course, fate be it, that’s the part that gets picked up by the person coming out the elevator. 

“Oh?” the person says. Marco trails his eyes up to see said person is not just any guy, because that would be too kind for someone like him, who obviously must have been a serial killer in his past life. The guy is none other than Mario Götze, who lives in the dorm room next to Robert and who Marco might have an ever so slight, tiny and in no way remarkable crush on.

To further prove the point that Marco was a serial killer in his past life, Mario is only wearing a zipped hoodie with nothing underneath it and a pair of tight, black boxers. He must have rushed out of his room when he heard Marco yelling, not even bothering with proper clothes.

Fuck Marco’s pale plump ass; and he thought things couldn’t get any worse.

“Hi! So, this isn’t at all weird or awkward,” Marco says, because he is the king of subtlety and as graceful as a cow trying to go down a set of stairs.

“No. No, it isn’t,” Mario says with a laugh, joking along with him, because Mario is the kind of guy who laughs with you and not at you, no matter the situation. This, against normal human logic, makes Marco’s embarrassment climb even higher. Mario walks up to him, taking in the situation. “KitKats or Oreos?” he asks after a couple of seconds.

“KitKats. I wanted the Oreos at first but I couldn’t reach them, so I decided to settle for the next best thing,” Marco says.

Mario hums in reply and Marco wonders if Mario has ever been caught in a similar situation. He wants to believe he has, for the sake of his mangled ego, even if it doesn’t mean much coming from someone who once exploded a microwave trying to cook some noodles. In Mario’s defense, Mario had been drunk and Marco might have told him it was totally fine to put the plastic in the microwave, but still. Everyone should know not to take advice from a man who gets stuck in a vending machine. 

“How do I— I mean, okay, yeah, maybe if…” Mario doesn’t finish the sentence, leaving Marco guessing on what he’s going to do. Marco’s mind doesn’t bother to fill in the rest of the sentence, but if it had it would have suggested something like ‘pulling Marco’s arm’ and it would have proven to be correct.

“Ow! I know you’re trying to help, but I think— _ow, you motherfucker_ —ripping my arm off isn’t the best solution for this problem,” Marco complains. Insulting his savior isn’t, if he thinks about it, the smartest of ideas, but so isn’t ripping off his freaking arm.

“Wait, I think I’ve got it,” Mario says, ignoring Marco’s attempts to push him away with his free hand. Marco’s about to tell him no, unless he wants to break Marco’s arm he sure as fuck hasn’t gotten it, thank you very much, when Mario goes and sits on his chest. 

On Marco’s chest. Mario, in his boxers, sits on Marco’s chest with his groin practically pressed against Marco’s head. The sight is a bit too much for Marco’s poor brain to handle after spending so much time staring at a stain on the ceiling, wondering if it was cum or alcohol.

“What are you doing?” Marco asks. He prides himself in how he sounds only ever so slightly panicked.

“I’m— helping— you.” Mario punctuates each word with a pull of Marco’s arm, which, by the way, still feels like it is about to be ripped to pieces.

“You’re going to break my arm. Seriously.” Marco grabs the closest part of Mario to him—his right hip—and tries to push him away. 

The contact seems to pull Mario out of whatever destructive path he’s in and makes him sit back, moving backwards on Mario’s chest so that his ass his above Marco’s belly. It’s an improvement, but a small one at that. 

“Sorry. That didn’t work like I wanted it to." Marco has to hold back everything in him to stop himself from rolling his eyes and saying, ‘No shit, Sherlock’.

“It’s alright, just don’t kill me please. I didn’t get a one in Linear Algebra II to die like this.”

Mario swats at Marco’s head even though he also laughs at his joke, needing to put a hand on Marco’s chest for balance afterwards. 

“I think there’s some butter left in the communal kitchen?” he asks. His cheeks are a little flushed and Marco is too aware of the heavy weight on his hips and the warm hand on his chest and how his crush is beginning to prove more problematic than he originally assumed. The fact that, despite his offer, Mario still makes no effort to move away doesn’t help.

His question is, at least, something Marco can focus on. It makes him cringe and wrinkle his nose. Having Mario Götze latter his arm in butter is not how he’d imagined his evening going. “No one’s ever going to let this one go after they hear about it.”

“You could always try to buy my silence,” Mario says with a wink. He gives Marco’s chest a little pat before he gets up. “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Ahah. _Hilarious_ ,” Marco calls out while Mario walks away.

Marco spends the next couple of minutes purposely not thinking about Mario’s comment, the wink and the way he sat on Marco’s chest like it was a normal thing to do. It’s not that Marco is opposed to any of it, but up until now he’d never known Mario was interested in him. He does remember Robert once telling him Mario wanted to bang him five ways into Sunday, but Robert also once told him he could totally make the jump from the rooftop of the science building to the maths building, so the point is mute.

Marco decides to do the only thing he could do and takes his cell phone out of his pocket.

To: **Andréeee**  

> quick no time 2 explain is it weird 2 ask some1 out on a date while theyr coating ur arm with butter??

André proves why he’s one of Marco’s best friend by replying not a minute later with a straight answer.

From: **Andréeee**

> kinda??? but youve done weirder sO

Marco nods to his phone. It’s true. He has definitely done weirder. Also, since they met in September, Mario has gone along with most of Marco’s—sometimes brilliant, sometimes questionable—ideas. If he hasn’t ditched Marco’s sorry ass yet, he probably won’t now either, unless he secretly detests Marco, is only helping him out of the kindness of his heart and decides to abandon him after Marco’s creepy love declaration.

To take a chance on love and risk pissing his pants, or to save his dignity and leave with nothing to show for himself but an empty bag of crisps, that was the question.

When Mario comes back, he returns with a packet of tissues, some butter and a chocolate bar, which he hands over to Marco. “You look hungry,” he says while he settles on the floor and it makes Marco think, _fuck it_ , any man who brings him chocolate is a man worth pissing his pants for.

“Thank you,” Marco replies. He watches as Mario puts some of the butter on a tissue and angles his body carefully so that he can slip his arm inside the vending machine. “So, are you spending Christmas here?” he asks to fill the silence.

Marco nods and bites down on his bottom lip in concentration. “Yeah, my mom and dad are visiting some old relatives in Austria and I don’t know them or can afford to pay for the flight, so I decided to stick around. What about you?”

“Kind of the same. I’m saving money to travel next summer and the Christmas party back home is always a bit too crazy for me, anyway.” Marco doesn’t add that he misses the crazy now and that he’s been alone and bored out of his mind just these past four days on his own. He’s never realized until now that for all the regrets he’s accumulated over the years, he wouldn’t trade most of them if it meant losing the memories that came with them. “I didn’t know you were staying too, though. If I had I’d have said something sooner.”

Mario chuckles and lowers down his head, angling his body again so that he’s practically on top of Marco. “Instead of this lovely proposal?”

Marco can tell Mario is making a joke, but he knows he’s not going to get a smoother—pun not intended—chance than this one.

“Yeah, I could have asked you out for dinner. Stolen only food from the lower shelves and treated you to a fine meal of,” Marco angles his head to check the snacks on the lowest shelf, “Coca-Cola and Rice Crispies.”

Mario stops covering Marco’s arm with butter for a second before he resumes his work. “Is that how you treat all your dates?” he asks, and he sounds almost hesitant, like he’s not sure if he’s getting this right.

“No, just the ones I really like,” Marco says, reaffirming his status as the king of subtlety. It’s either obnoxious or nervous with him, no in between, and Marco’s betting all his cards on a positive answer from Mario, so he’s saying screw it to nervous, hello to corny.

Mario looks down at him, and Marco doesn’t stop the hopeful smile from spreading across his face, nor does he stop it from blooming into a proper smile when he sees Mario’s answering grin. “Nice,” Mario says. “Although I’m fine with sharing a packet of noodles and watching a rerun of X-Factor.”

“You’re a lover of the simple things in life then. I like that in a man,” Marco says with a sharp nod of approval, getting a laugh from Mario. Marco’s grin widens even further. He’s always liked getting a laugh out of people, and the fact that he can make Mario laugh like this, after months of—not pathetic at all—pinning, is a great feeling.

“Alright, let’s try this again,” Mario says after he’s deemed Marco’s arm buttery enough.

“For the noodles and the X-Factor,” Marco adds.

“And don’t forget I— expect— something else in return for my silence.”

Marco doesn’t have the chance to reply to Mario’s comment—and this time it’s impossible to ignore the innuendo wrapped around his words—because at that moment his hand is finally freed from the deathly crutches of the vending machine. “Oh sweet freedom, how I’ve longed for you.”

“How long had you been stuck before I showed up?” Mario asks while he moves to get up.

“About two hours. I thought nobody else was around so I sorta just accepted my fate of spending the whole night here,” Mario looks at him questioningly, as if asking _what changed._ Marco shrugs. “Then shit hit the fan when my hand went numb and I realized I had to pee.”

“You’re so lucky I was here to save you,” Mario says, ducking his head as he speaks.

Marco chances a glance at him and smiles. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

Mario heats up the noodles—on a bowl this time—while Marco washes his arm. They spend the night watching Big Brother—the X-Factor reruns are only on Tuesday—and sharing a blanket in the common room. It’s not how Marco imagined he’d spend his night, but he’s far from complaining.

He texts André halfway through one of the episodes, while one of the contestants bawls her eyes out because someone ate the last slice of cake. Understandable, Marco thinks.

To: **Andréeee**

> operation ask some1 out on a date while theyr coating ur arm with butter was a success   

André replies a couple of minutes later during one of the challenges. Marco misses his text and only sees it the next morning, after he wakes up on the couch with a sore back and Mario drooling on his shoulder.

From: **Andréeee**

> congratsss!! and tell mario if u guys get married i call dibs on being the best man


End file.
